2013 WPT Five Diamond Main Event Day 5: Dan Smith Heads Final Table

By Dan Katz - Dec 11th, 2013

It was another nine hour day at the 2013 World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event on Tuesday and now we have our television final table. Just 21 players remained after Day 4, but with relatively large chip stacks and players who played cautiously to try to move up on the payout list, it was a slow-go to get to the final six. Dan Smith will begin Wednesday’s action as the chip leader, taking 3,720,000 to the table.

It looks to be a good race to the finish, as with the big blind at 40,000, every player will have a deep enough stack to be able to play at least a bit. Along with Smith, Gary Benson also has over 3 million chips (3,110,000), while Shaun Suller is the only one in the 2 million range (2,425,000). The bottom three players are all bunched up: Joe Serock has 1,615,000, Eddy Sabat has 1,540,000, and Barry Hutter is holding onto 1,265,000 chips.

Day 5 ended shortly after a break between levels, around 9:30pm Vegas time. With only about half a million chips left, Curt Kohlberg moved all-in over the top of a 90,000 raise by Suller and a call by Sabat. Sutter made the call, but Sabat decided that discretion was the better part of valor and folded. When the cards were revealed, Kohlberg showed pocket Deuces, a reasonable hand with which to take a shot when short-stacked. Unfortunately, he was up against Suller’s Jacks. The best hand remained as such all the way through the river and Kohlberg was the television final table bubble boy, eliminated in seventh place.

One of the chip leader’s biggest hands of the day came on the elimination of the first player from the unofficial final table. Smith raised pre-flop to 60,000, Day 5’s opening chip leaderJean-Robert Bellande called, as did Serock. Action was checked around to Serock on a K♠-8♦-6♠ flop and he decided to bet 105,000 chips. Smith called and Bellande then went all-in for around 700,000. Serock folded, but Smith made the call. Bellande had a good hand, K♥-Q♥, for top pair, but Smith had A♥-K♣, which had Bellande out-kicked. Bellande was unable to improve his hand and was knocked out in tenth place.

Because there are only six players left, play will start at 4:00pm on Wednesday, rather than noon like it did on previous days. The player who has all the chips at the end will walk away with $1,161,135.

2013 World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts